There you have it. The state govt, and coincidentally the federal, have stated on record that they have the power and authority to legally seize your car, your property, legally.
And you don't have a damn thing to say or do about it.
However, the Supreme Court isn't on the law enforcement side of the issue, they are on the bill of rights being examined and interpreted correctly so the citizens of the USA aren't screwed over by law enforcement, you know, the guys with guns and badges who take your stuff and handcuff you, search your sphincter for drugs, repeatedly by force, and then jail you without a lawyer or a trial for 2 years (yes, that happened in Arizona's Maricopa county, and I posted about it).
Tyson Timbs, the plaintiff in the case before the Supreme Court, was arrested in 2015 after selling heroin to undercover police officers. He pleaded guilty to one count of dealing a controlled substance and one count of conspiracy to commit theft, and he was sentenced to one year of house arrest followed by five years of probation. He was not sent to prison, and that is something I want you to notice. It would cost the state 40 thousand dollars a year to have him in jail, or prison... so, net loss to the state, see? Instead, they stole his Land Rover, and they got money for it at auction. Net gain, see?
Now, if the crime isn't heinous enough to send someone to jail, what the fuck are they doing stealing his car?
The state of Indiana seized his 2012 Land Rover—which he had purchased with money received from his late father's life insurance payout, not with the proceeds of drug sales—on the ground that it had been used to commit a crime. He actually committed a crime, and they did not seize him. So, clearly, asset seizure isn't a punishment for a crime, or they would take your liberty and freedom and put you in jail, or prison. No, it's to add to the police budget. That's what it's always been about, and the police have enjoyed taking money from people too... and I posted about that too
The Supreme Court left little doubt (today) Wednesday that it would rule that the Constitution’s ban on excessive fines applies to the states, and will limit, or eliminate the confiscation by local law enforcement of property belonging to someone suspected of a crime.
Justice Neil Gorsuch was incredulous that Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher was urging the justices to rule that states should not be held to the same standard.
“Here we are in 2018 still litigating incorporation of the Bill of Rights. Really? Come on, general,” Gorsuch said to Fisher
Justice Stephen Breyer said under Fisher’s reading police could take the car of a driver caught going 5 mph (8 kph) above the speed limit.
Indiana’s solicitor general was already trying to defend confiscating a $42,000 Land Rover taken from Tyson Timbs, who sold less than $400 worth of drugs. Before the day was through though, Solicitor General Thomas Fisher found himself arguing that the Constitution would let him forfeit luxury cars caught going five miles over the speed limit.
Fisher responded that “there is no excessive fines issue” for in rem civil forfeitures, and were completely outside the protection of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive fines constitutional safeguard.
In the Timbs oral argument on Wednesday, Justice Neil Gorsuch pointed out that the ban on excessive fines has a “pretty deep history,” with “guarantees against them go[ing] back to Magna Carta and 1225, the English Bill of Rights, the Virginia Declaration of Rights.”
Strong Supreme Court precedent presented another obstacle to Indiana’s arguments. More than 25 years ago, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Austin v. United States that civil forfeitures could be considered fines under the Excessive Fines Clause, if they served, at least in part, as punishment. As an amicus brief filed by multiple Eighth Amendment scholars noted, “the terms ‘fines’ and ‘forfeitures’ were used interchangeably” in colonial laws and during the Founding era. And in the Timbs case, the state even conceded that the forfeiture statute used was partly punitive.
Little surprise then that Wesley Hottot, the Institute for Justice senior attorney who argued on behalf of Timbs, called the case “constitutional housekeeping” with a “straightforward answer.”
Timbs is only the fifth Excessive Fines Clause the Supreme Court has heard in its entire history; its first ruling on the Clause wasn’t until 1989.
In 2013, Timbs was arrested after he sold a few grams of heroin (valued at under $400) to undercover officers. Timbs was sentenced to five years’ probation and one year of house arrest. But the state also wanted his car, and filed a motion to forfeit it.
Both an Indiana trial court and appeals court ruled in favor of Timbs, and rejected the forfeiture as unconstitutional under the Excessive Fines Clause. Forfeiting the $42,000 Land Rover would be more than four times as high as the maximum $10,000 fine that could have been imposed on Timbs. It would also have been roughly 35 times as much as the $1,200 Timbs actually paid in court costs and fees.
But in November 2017, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed those decisions and upheld the forfeiture, ruling that Indiana and other states simply were not bound by the Excessive Fines Clause. “The United States Supreme Court has never enforced the Excessive Fines Clause against the States,” the Indiana Supreme Court ruled, “and we opt not to do so here.”
With its decision, the Hoosier High Court further widened a split in the legal community. The highest courts in 14 states, as well as two federal appeals courts, have all ruled that the Excessive Fines Clause does bind the states
left-leaning municipal organizations, including the National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, jointly filed the only amicus brief agreeing with Indiana’s position.
(Notably, while law enforcement lobbies have been some of the loudest opponents of civil forfeiture reform, groups like the Fraternal Order of Police and the National District Attorneys Association decided to stay out of this Supreme Court battle, and not show just how clearly they want to maintain the status quo of boosting their budgets and seizing sports cars they can use for drag racing, flat screens they want for the break room, etc.)
"The Excessive Fines Clause is a critical check on the government's power to punish people and take their property," is how Wesley Hottot, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which is representing Timbs, describes the case. "Without it, state and local law enforcement could confiscate everything a person owns based on a minor crime or—using civil forfeiture—no crime at all."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-weighs-constitutional-case-on-excessive-fines/2018/11/28/0d4ca200-f2d1-11e8-99c2-cfca6fcf610c_story.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2018/11/29/at-u-s-supreme-court-argument-indiana-claims-it-can-forfeit-cars-for-speeding-minor-drug-crimes/#67cb00b92406
https://reason.com/blog/2018/11/28/breyer-destroyed-civil-asset-forfeiture
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